Category: Business Linguistics

Businesses without a strong feedback culture miss opportunities to grow and improve but believing feedback is important is not enough. Great leaders use feedback to develop performance and choose language carefully to inspire the results they want in the future.

Consider this example:

A team member sent an email to a client without correcting the spelling. As you were cc’d, you noticed this. Which if the following would you choose when speaking to them:

You should have used a spell check.

Why didn’t you use a spell check?

Next time, let’s use a spell check.

Learning point

‘You should have…’ criticises. It shows that I can see the mistake but you couldn’t. It says ‘I’m better than you’.

‘Why didn’t you…’ accuses. It says they don’t care and questions their commitment. Do you never make mistakes?

‘Next time…’ inspires. It shows understanding and sets higher expectations at the same time.

Ideas change the world, transform lives and destroy them. All of the best and worst moments in human history began with an idea.

But what happened next?

That idea was put into words. Words that inspired. Words that empowered. Words that transformed a simple idea and created a movement. A movement that changed the world.

And how was the world changed? With words.

It’s crazy isn’t it? Just a few words can change the world. How often do we think about it?

But what if you did think about it?

What if you thought about every word that came out of your mouth?

How would your relationships change? How would your performance improve? How much more effective would you be?

On this site, we consider the words that business people use. We look at how these words affect relationships and results and we discuss how changing your words can drive meaningful personal change and professional development.

If you work, look at the for professionalssection for advice on how you can change your words to perform better at work.

If you train people at work, look at the for trainerssection for tips and ideas on how you can make your clients’ words more effective.